We recognise that, due to the reliance on the Public Health (Control of Diseases) Act as the legislative framework for creating new offences, the Government was limited in its options to create new offences. A lesson from the covid-19 pandemic for future pandemic preparedness is therefore that the Government needs to have a greater range of options at its disposal to introduce public health restrictions swiftly in a proportionate and predictable way. In future the Government should not solely rely upon fixed penalty notices of increasing magnitude to deliver compliance with public health restrictions. For example, given the seriousness of the offence of holding a large unauthorised gathering in a pandemic, the Government should consider developing alternative means of ensuring compliance that does not rely on a fixed penalty notice of £10,000.